Glasgow Anxiety Therapy

The Princes Trust recently reported that children like structure. And lack of structure is damaging to their future success and wellbeing.

The fourth annual Prince`s Trust Youth Index reveals how one in ten young people feel that while they were growing up they  "lacked structure and direction".

Structure included a set bedtime. Children do fight against this, but parents can be encouraged to persist, because children with lower level grades at school were more than twice as likely to make this claim (26%). This increases to 39% per cent among those who left school with fewer than five A*-C grades at GCSE.

Young people with poorer grades are also twice as likely as their peers to claim that they did not have regular meal times (30% compared with 14%). We seem to have got out of the habit of having tea at a set time each day. If everyone knows when the meal is going to be ready, then people will be encouraged to be available at mealtimes.

Martina Milburn, chief executive of youth charity The Prince’s Trust, says "The absence of structure and routine in a young life can have a devastating impact. Without the right support, directionless teenagers can become lost young adults – unconfident, under-qualified and unemployed.” So lack of structure damages the self-confidence and self-esteem of young people, setting them up to achieve less in later life, and find life a struggle.

Children learn things without realising it. A meal on the table at a set time demonstrates planning in action, demonstrates an element of control over one`s life, it encourages a sort of community activity and teamwork.

Young adults without the ability to make deadlines, stick to routines can become unhappy adults. I recall that as a child I thought routine was boring. But now I think that it keeps us mentally healthy. If you have no structure in the day, nothing planned, what is the point of getting out of bed?

So this applies to adults too. I generally recommend setting a fixed time for getting up every day. The next thing is to ensure that we have something interesting to do to fill the time!

 Anxiety appears in many forms. Whenever it comes on, whatever it is called, it is fear. It may seem extraordinary that a person may not be able walk to the end of his road, but that is the power of fear. It may be out of proportion, but it is paralysing.   But it doesn’t have to be forever. Anxiety in all forms can be treated. This text comes from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Anxiety has a purpose. It makes us more alert, more aware, more ready for action. The fight or flight hormones rush through our body, getting us ready for action. That’s very useful in the jungle. And a little bit can help if we have to give a talk to colleagues. Too much and you want to run away. That’s panic.

The good news is that you can learn how to regain control. Methods have been developed over the last 50 years or so, and proved to work. So take courage. Decide to take action. Because you can get better.

In hypnosis, you can look at the things that make you anxious and learn to respond in a different way. Because of course, anxiety triggers more anxiety. And fear of anxiety is paralysing too.

With the sort of hypnotherapy that I practice, you can expect to feel significantly better after just a few sessions, armed with some practical techniques that will last you all your life. You will rebuild your self-confidence as your anxiety recedes. Why wait?

If we think about nice things that might happen in the future, we will feel happy and relaxed. If we think about all the terrible things that might happen, then we are likely to feel low.

This is probably the most important thing to know when you are wanting to manage your anxiety.

You can try it out for yourself. Remember a time when you felt really good about yourself. Smile to yourself. How do you feel? Then think of a ghastly mistake you made in the past, and notice all the feelings. With me, it is a hot face and dry mouth, maybe with a sense of shame.

So, knowing that it is your thoughts, or your belief systems and attitudes that are making you feel this way, you can accept that if you change these, then you will change your feelings. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) was developed to deal with just this sort of problem. If you want to have a go on your own, try David Burns' book The Feelgood Handbook. Or give me a call and try some cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy.

Is that two things on your To Do List, or just one?

Stress can make you physically ill. There is lots of medical research to showing that stress, especially certain types of chronic stress, have predictable effects on the body's  defences, particularly by reducing the activity of natural killer cells.

The brain is hard-wired to the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system. The brain is in constant contact with these systems through well-defined pathways. So it is not surprising that what happens in the brain can alter host defences.

And this has important consequences for how we manage our wellbeing. If we become defeatist, seeing only the worst outcomes, then that brain-ANS-endocrine link will result in lowered immunity.

Based on the recognition of this connection, Professor Leslie G Walker (Chair of Cancer Rehabilitation) at Hull University and Director of their Institute of Rehabilitation (and a Scot previously based in Aberdeen) uses hypnotherapy to induce a positive attitude in cancer patients. He found that the use of hypnotherapy with cancer patients improved.

Sixty-three patients with Hodgkin’s disease or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma were randomised to one of three interventions: (1) training in progressive muscular relaxation and cue controlled relaxation, (2) relaxation plus hypnotherapy (direct hypnotic suggestion) or (3) standard treatment. The purpose of these was to reduce the severity and prevalence of chemotherapy side effects (nausea, vomiting and anticipatory anxiety).

37% of the patients who got the  standard treatment were still alive at the end of the trial.  50% of those offered relaxation techniques with or without hypnotherapy were still alive. The average survival of those in the standard treatment group was 74 months compared with 115 months in those offered relaxation with or without hypnotherapy.

Reducing stress makes a difference to people suffering with a serious illness. So it can help you too. Reducing stress improves your wellbeing.

The most effective way to deal with anxiety and worry is through cognitive behavioural therapy. This is what I use, alongside hypnosis, which has been shown to speed up the process.

But nowadays technology has been harnessed to help you. There are great online therapy courses and there are now apps for your smart phone. So, there are lots of ways now to feel better. No reason to hang on to your worries and anxiety and the misery it causes you.

The technology-based therapies can be used on their own, but if you want a helping hand, then contact me. I have gone modern too, and offer therapy on the phone supported by hypnosis cds which have been prepared just for you, to deal with your specific problems. For some people this is great, as it is anonymous. You don't need to say who you are. And I continue to offer face-to-face therapy sessions in Glasgow and Annan.

This is National Anger Awareness Week. Most of us get angry from time to time. But if we get angry often and easily, unable to resist the urge to flail out and unable to control our actions, then we need to take things in hand.

Anger not only damages relationships, but our own health too. All those fight or flight hormones flooding into the bloodstream cause a range of problems - high blood pressure, lowered resistance to illness, chronic back pain, stroke, insomnia, skin problems, depression, alcoholism. These risks have been shown to be associated with failure to control anger responses.

So in Anger Awareness Week, here are some tips.

When you notice the signs (the red curtain coming down, the faster heart rate, the dry mouth and many more) step back. If you can leave the room, so much the better. When your fight or flight hormones are flooding your bloodstream, you have a choice. Try flight instead of fight.

Go for a run or a brisk walk. This gets those hormones used up and out of your body.

Count backwards from ten.

Breathe slowly. Breathe in deeply, hold it at the top till it is uncomfortable, then breathe out slowly. Simple, but effective.
If you tend to breathe lightly just in your chest rather than down in your belly (like athletes do) then learning belly breathing would be useful. Yoga teachers know how to do this.

As a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist, I can help you to change the style of thinking that could be contributing to your anger. Maybe other people just don`t respond to you as they should. Or they ought to do the things you want them to do. If you hear yourself say Ought, Should or Must, then  your demands of others might be unreasonable. If you feel hard done by, this will make you angry. The more you think these thoughts, the more miserable you will be. And when you feel bad, you get angry, your self-confidence plummets, your self-esteem drops.

Challenging these ways of thinking will help to feel calm and in control, confident, strong and empowered. You could learn how to do this by coming to see me, or try some useful self-help books, like David Burns `Feeling Good`.

Easily hypnotised people can hallucinate colours whenever they want to. They can even choose which colour. This research comes from
University of Hull. Psychologists gathered together two groups - one group where they considered themselves  highly suggestible and another group that said they were not easily hypnotised. The groups were shown some black-and-white patterns and asked to try to see colors in them. The highly suggestible group while in hypnosis was consistently able to see colours while the second group generally failed at this task.

The psychologists were able to measure some extraordinary brain activity in the highly suggestible group. These subjects showed significant changes in the parts of their brains responsible for visual perception. Previous research has shown hypnosis can get people to see colours that aren't there, but this new research indicates that the hypnosis simply unlocks a natural ability.

What this is showing is that people who are easily suggestible can alter their brain activity at will. Lead researcher Professor Giuliana Mazzoni says "These are very talented people. They can change their perception and experience of the world."

Some people are naturally good at hypnosis - which is a skill and can be learned. You get better at it with practice. Hypnosis is totally voluntar. This research shows that you can change your perception of the world through hypnosis. This is very helpful if you are trying to change something troublesome in your life. Because hypnosis allows us to alter our perception of the world, it means we change change from being anxious and worried, bounced around by our emotions or other people,  to feeling calm and in control.

Hamlet got it right. Research from the University of California shows how dreaming and sleep help us solve our problems.

Matthew Walker works at the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Berkeley. A whole centre dedicated to discovering more about sleep. A wonderful night`s sleep is not only delicious, but is now shown dreaming soothes our anxiety, by reducing the stress hormones in our blood.

Matthew reports that in the  REM phase of sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress.This allows us to  reprocess our emotional experiences in an environment where stress hormones are low. So we wake up the next day and those experiences have been softened. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope. The dream phase of sleep provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day’s emotional experiences. So if you have ever wondered about the meaning of dreams, it seems that they allow us to consider the things that happen during the day and take some of the sting out.

So getting a good night`s sleep is vital for our emotional as well as our physical wellbeing. If you are having trouble sleeping, then come and see me. In just a few sessions, you will be enjoying delicious dreamy sleep again.

Resilience is our psychological immune system. It protects us from the fear of failure and helps us to develop an optimistic outlook. It makes us strong and gives us the courage to continue even when things seem bleak.

We can train ourselves to be resilient and it is quite straightforward.

People who worry tend to focus on the bad things that might happen. So that is a clue! Spending some time making a note of things that go well is the basic idea.

If you are a worrier or have become a bit of a pessimist, or if you find that your difficulties are sometimes overwhelming, then a bit of resilience training might be just the ticket.

Every day, make a note of a few things, 3 maybe,  that you enjoyed or that went well, or indeed did not turn out to be the disaster you predicted. Writing them down can help.

Then think about why it happened. Was it a happy coincidence? Was it because you took some action - made a phone call, for example, or took the plunge into something you have been avoiding maybe.

Then consider how you feel about this good thing. Why do you value it? What does it tell you?

And next, how can you get more of it?

When things are enjoyable, then why not have some more? If something worked, then do it again.

These ideas have been developed by the Penn Resiliency Programme, which has been taken up by the US Army as a way to help their soldiers get prepared for the anxiety and difficulties that they will undoubtedly come across. So, even though this is simple, it has been shown to work even in the most stressful circumstances.

Rather than dwell on all the problems in our lives, which just make us feel bad, this technique helps us to get things in perspective, by getting as much benefit as we can from the good things that we experience. Give it a try.

This article was in today`s Daily Telegraph.  Joanna Lumley suffered from panic attacks in her mid-20s, while she was in a West End play and struggling to raise her young son, Jamie, as a single mother

The panic attacks brought her to “the brink of utter insanity” and made her believe that assassins were lurking in the audience when she appeared on stage.

Lumley relived her darkest moments in a conversation with Lord Bragg, the broadcaster, who has suffered his own mental health problems. Their encounter was filmed for Living The Life, a series on Sky Arts.

Referring to it as “a bit of a wobbler”, she told Bragg: “I was on stage and I began to see people levelling guns at me out of the boxes.


Lumley overcame it through hypnosis and by talking herself through her fears. “I knew I was going to make myself waterproof against it. It would not happen again, not on my watch,” she said. She believes her breakdown was born of money worries. “It was Marmite on toast for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper,” she said. “There was nothing else to eat, we were so poor. I chopped up towel rails to burn on the fire. I was happy and it didn’t matter but we were skint and I couldn’t see how I would manage to be a good enough parent to my darling boy and how I would actually get through life.”

Bragg has suffered two breakdowns: when he was 13 and after the suicide of his first wife, Lisa Roche, in 1971.

Hypnosis is very effective in helping you to recover from panic attacks. And it does not take long.